I remember I had the FAFSA sign-up screen open and next to me was my high school counselor. She was helping me input all the information. I knew that college was a long process but coming from an immigrant family, the process was different than what others talked about. I had to put everything in manually, which meant I had to be very careful. The funniest thing is that double-checking work is very important. Before I submitted everything, I asked my counselor to look over it and she asserted, “I did not know you were married.” I was so confused when she said that. I was giggling and said to her, “no I’m not what are you talking about,” and she responded with, “you put here that you were married.” This is why I will always double-check everything because you might accidentally say that you are married on a legal document.
Since I am the oldest in my family, legal documents have always been under my control. Once I was able to read, my parents would ask me to translate important documents. I also became the person who handles the financial documents. This was so frustrating that I started to cry, knowing that some people have it as easy as just pressing a button and having all their information filled in. Although I’ve taken on similar processes in the past, this felt different because this was about my future. I felt like I finally reached the top, but now I started a new race with new rules. I asked my counselor to take me to step by step through the process again, just to fully commit it to memory, and now I usually know what to type. But this was the moment I realized that I had entered adulthood.